[Libloather]

Polonium is a chemical element with symbol Po and atomic number 84, discovered in 1898 by Marie Curie and Pierre Curie. A rare and highly radioactive element with no stable isotopes, polonium is chemically similar to bismuth and tellurium, and it occurs in uranium ores. Applications of polonium are few. They include heaters in space probes, antistatic devices, and sources of neutrons and alpha particles. Because of its position in the periodic table, polonium is sometimes classified as a metalloid.[3] Other sources say that on the basis of its properties and behavior, it is "unambiguously a metal".[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium

[virgil]

I read somewhere that Marie Curie’s papers, even her cookbooks are still radioactive to this day. They didn’t understand the effects of ionizing radiation on tissue at the time.

[Billthedrill]

This is incredibly exotic. Colorless, odorless, and harmless if contained in glass.

She said that the substance could be transported in a glass tube without any risk of alpha particles escaping.

And inside the body, incurable and eventually lethal. The one thing it won't be after this is unprecedented.

[trisham]

On 24 November 2006, a posthumous statement was released, in which Litvinenko named Putin as the man behind his poisoning.[91] Litvinenko’s friend Alex Goldfarb, who was also the chairman of Boris Berezovsky’s Civil Liberties Fund, claimed Litvinenko had dictated it to him three days earlier. Andrei Nekrasov said his friend Litvinenko and Litvinenko’s lawyer had composed the statement in Russian on 21 November and translated it to English.[92]

Putin disputed the authenticity of this note while attending a Russia-EU summit in Helsinki and claimed it was being used for political purposes.[93][94] Goldfarb later stated that Litvinenko, on his deathbed, had instructed him to write a note “in good English” in which Putin was to be accused of his poisoning. Goldfarb also stated that he read the note to Litvinenko in English and Russian and Litvinenko agreed “with every word of it” and signed it.[91]

His autopsy took place on 1 December at the Royal London Hospital’s institute of pathology. It was attended by three physicians, including one chosen by the family and one from the Foreign Office.[95] Litvinenko was buried at Highgate Cemetery (West side) in north London on 7 December.[96] The police are treating his death as murder, although the London coroner’s inquest is yet to be completed.[97][98] On 25 November, two days after Litvinenko’s death, an article attributed to him was published by The Mail on Sunday entitled “Why I believe Putin wanted me dead”.[99]

Source: Wikipedia

[Gay State Conservative]

[Brother Cracker]

Andrei Lugovoi, the former KGB officer turned Russian deputy accused by Britain of killing Alexander Litvinenko

[Pearls Before Swine]

That autopsy qualifies as the archetypal “dirty job”. The people who performed it did their duty.

[BeadCounter]

Someone said in another thread that even if you had someone with some polonium, in a teapot or wherever, the situation could arise where it becomes a public danger as well.

[BuffaloJack]

> ... he was the only person ever on record to have been poisoned using polonium.

Not true. Yasser Arafat was also killed by Polonium poisoning.

[BlackVeil]

I always wonder why he was killed by that method - assasins of that type could use any means - why such a dangerous and noticeable substance?